When The Walls Come Crashing Down
by TheUSofCalzona
Summary: A continuation on the ending of the season finally of Grey's season 9.


Bet you thought we were dead.

* * *

Arizona looked at her wife, breathing faster than she thought she had before. She felt like she was back in the woods, the pain running though her whole body was nearly soul crushing. If she ever had a soul to start with. "I changed out there. I changed when I heard Lexie getting pulled apart by wild animals. I changed when I screamed for hours in pain while Mark kept dying." She stumbled back as her thigh clenched, nearly sending her to the floor. "I made a mistake. I made the biggest mistake of my life when I did what I did with Lauren. But that doesn't mean I have given up on our marriage." She wanted to be able to take it back, or at least take back Callie knowing about what she had done.

"Bullshit!" Callie screamed, hands clenching at her sides. "You did give up, you gave up the minute you woke up after surgery. You've been trying and faking it and...and you almost had me believing it and God how could you do this? How could you hurt me like this? Did you want to get even that badly? Was saving your life so...so horrible you needed to get r...revenge." She sobbed, beside herself with gut wrenching emotion.

Arizona took a step forward before remembering that right now touching Callie was about the last thing she would want. "She made me feel like I was myself again. She treated me like you use to treat me." She whispered, closing her eyes and hoping that she could keep herself on her feet. She didn't want to fall down right now, not just because of how embarrassing it would be but she didn't want to appear weaker than cheating on her wife already made her. "She made me feel like I might not have died in that crash. She gave me hope back. She make me feel I could give up some of the control." She added in a soft voice, wishing that it hadn't felt so easy to feel like that with Lauren when it was so much more difficult with Callie.

"She's not your wife. She's not the mother of your child. I mean...I'm not dead, I can tell she's hot, probably hotter then me, and she clearly likes you which I'm sure is flattering but that doesn't mean you let it go anywhere. You...God I can't even look at you right now. I've done everything, everything I can to try and help you and be supportive and be what you need. Even though God knows you won't actually ask for help or heaven forbid talk to me and tell me what you need." Callie said, looking as stricken as she feels. "You wouldn't let me be your wife so I tried to be your doctor. You didn't want me to be a doctor or know about your phantom pain so I tried to be your wife. I...I tried so hard to be what you needed and it wasn't enough. It's never been enough. I...I thought I was lucky. I lost Mark, I nearly lost you and you lost your leg, but you lived. I got a life with you. Now..."

Arizona took another step toward Callie, trying not to start crying. She hated how it felt after the kind of year she had. "I fucked up with Lauren. And I am not asking you to approve of what I did or to let me off the hook. I'm not asking for anything more than for us to talk about our problems and to try to figure a way for us not to end up apart. I might hate what happened to me, I might be pissed at you but I can't lose you." She whispered, closing her eyes and trying to figure out what she could say to make her wife understand just how sorry she was. "I know that this hurts. I'm not really sure how I thought you would find out. I wanted to be the one that told you. I had this whole thing worked out in my head. But that's not the point. The point is you know and I am asking you to talk to me. Just talk to me for once and not at me." She took another step forward but this time her leg gave out and she hit the floor like a stone, her nose hitting the floor, causing blood to gush out.

"God damn it Arizona." Callie sighed, grabbing a towel from the stack in the corner and kneeling down to press it to Arizona's nose. "Just stay still and let me see if it's broken. " She said, glad for the excuse to be a tiny bit of an in control doctor. Her life hadn't been in her control for close to a year, not really, not when she thought back on it. "You need to rest. You've been on your feet way too long with that surgery and then… Well maybe you weren't on your feet as long as I think. Your ring? I mean...God. You didn't even know you'd lost your wedding ring?" That might hurt more than almost anything. Lauren walking around with her wife's wedding rings pinned to her shirt.

"I thought I felt it. I'm so use to feeling it I guess I made it up." Arizona said, feeling like she had just been punched in the face. "I took the rings off at the start of my shift like I usually do and then, then after I thought I felt them but I was in a rush because of the storm and I didn't check." She closed her eyes, rolling over and letting Callie check to make sure she was ok. "I didn't take my leg off. I mean mostly I just laid there and let her ... Do whatever. I wanted her to stop the second she started but I couldn't move. I was having a panic attack. That's why I was fighting with her and trying to give her the cold shoulder. I was having a panic attack so I couldn't move and I wanted her to stop. I get them a lot when I'm being touched." She said, not sure why she was explaining any of the details to Callie, she wouldn't want to hear them.

"A panic attack? Really? Is that why you mostly just lay there when we have sex too? Or had sex anyway." It happened once in the last month. "I mean I thought you were tired or nervous about your leg but...hey, maybe you just panic when I touch you too." Callie says as coldly as she can, which isn't very coldly considering her voice cracks and she hurriedly wipes tears away before getting up to get Arizona some aspirin. Touching her to make sure she didn't break her nose was more than she really wanted to touch Arizona tonight.

"I do. Have panic attacks when we have sex when it's my turn to lay back and to let you touch me. That's why I always have you lay back first. When I'm in control, when I have you at my mercy I can push though it. I can try to keep my demons at bay." Arizona admitted, trying to be honest with her wife and not shut her out. That was always their problem, shutting the other out. "I love when you touch me but it makes me think about the bugs crawling on me and I get sent back to that mountain and then I panic and I just can't move or breath or think. I just shut down and lay there and wait for the panic to stop." She pulled herself up so she was sitting against the wall. "All I want to do is scream and tell you that I need help but I can't. And when we're finished and you hold me you look so happy that I let you touch me so then I don't say anything."

"Oh my god. You...I think I'm going to be sick." Callie said, looking pale as she handed Arizona aspirin and a bottle of water before weakly collapsing onto the cot nearby. Why the hell hadn't Arizona told her this before now? Why did it take a warhead straight to her heart in the form of some perky little surgeon screwing her before Arizona would talk and open up? "I...I raped my own wife. You...you didn't want me to touch you but I did and…I should have known. Oh my god." She said, shaking her head numbly. She raped her wife every time they had sex and she had no idea Arizona was doing anything but enjoy herself. She thought she was making things better.

"No. No Calliope that's not what happened." Arizona took a second and swallowed the pill with a gulp of water. "I wanted you to touch me, to want me, to have that part of us back. I wanted it so damn much." She used the back of her hand to wipe the tears from her eyes. Great now she just made Callie think she did horrible things. Awesome. "I wanted it, I did. You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't. I should have said something after the first time it happened. It didn't happen right away. It took a few times for the nerves to die down and for the panic to start up." She reached out, her hand slipping into Callie's.

"I'm your wife. You...you're the only person I've made love with in years and...And I didn't know. How could I not know?" Callie asked, shocked she didn't know Arizona was going through all that. "I know you don't like feeling weak or asking for help. You're a good man in a storm. I know that. But…how could you not talk to me? I mean that...God Arizona, do you think I wouldn't have understood? Wouldn't have waited?" She demanded, pulling her hand from Arizona's as she brought her hands up to scrub at her tear streaked face.

"I thought it would be the final straw." Arizona admitted, again trying to go for honesty over sweeping things out of the way. "I thought that if I took sex off the table, if everything else was already so bad, that we would just fall apart." She pulled her good leg up to her chest, holding on to it with both hands. She needed to hold onto something or she was sure she would fall apart even worse. "I thought it might get better if I didn't say anything and just let whatever was going on run its course. I thought that the panic attacks would stop sooner or later." She put her head on her knee, feeling her gut turning. "I thought I could make you fall in love with me again if I just toughed it out. I didn't want to feel empty inside anymore and I knew if you and I didn't stay together I wouldn't have another shot at having a family."

"Arizona...God...How...How could you think I didn't love you? For four days I sat here holding Sofia and praying to a god I'd almost given up on that you were alive. I felt what it might be like to be without you and it felt like my heart had been scooped out by a rusty spoon." Callie choked out. "I love you. I loved you. I will love you. What part of that can't I get into your thick skull? You swore at me, threw things, yelled, denied Sofia, shut me out and still I stayed."

"I'm not saying that you don't love me. I know that you do. At least I know now that you do." Arizona reached back for Callie's hand, thankfully she was able to wash them between Lauren and, well, the rest of her day. "But I don't think you are in love with me. At least not like you use to be." She muttered, looking up at Callie. "You don't make plans for us to go out so we can have date nights. You don't come up behind me, dip me and kiss me before setting me right and then walking away like nothing happened. You don't slip your hand down my thigh when I'm driving anymore. You love me but you're not in love with me." She let a few tears fall before turning her head to wipe them all away.

"Arizona...Is that…Is that why you think I don't do those things? God, no, no that's...That's so far from the truth it hurts. You didn't want me touching you at all never mind your leg so I'm afraid to go too far or do something you don't want. You didn't want to go out and get starred at, even though people only stare because you're stunning, so why would I plan nights out and make you feel uncomfortable or pressured? You were so worried about your leg and being at work that I don't want to dip you like that and then have you not catch your balance. You pushed me away so hard for so long…And I've only barely started to get you back...I didn't want to loose you again." Callie explained.

"Oh God." Arizona's face slowly fell as she let Callie's words wash over her. Callie loved her. Callie was still in love with her. She cheated on her wife who was still in love with her after how she acted. She cheated on her wife with some woman who she didn't even know and who knew way more about her than she should from google. She was a cheater now. "I thought . . . I was so wrong . . . how could I be so wrong? How could I think that you were going to . . . how did I think you didn't . . . fuck." She put her head back against her knee, her shoulders shaking as she started to cry. She had called it wrong for months. Months of her life she had called it wrong and it lead her down a road where she ended up in bed with another woman. She couldn't have called this more wrong.

"I don't know but...clearly you did." Callie said, voice cracking and hoarse from the yelling and crying. "You did. And now...Now I don't know what we do because I love you but I can't stand looking at you because it hurts too much. It hurts and...And I don't know what to do." She said, feeling more defeated then when her father disowned her or she was dumped by Arizona in an airport, or even than when George cheated on her.

"Will you let me say goodbye to Sofia before you take her away from me?" Arizona whispered. Callie would go back to the apartment with her or to her office. She wasn't going to stay, not after what she had done. "I know I don't have paperwork making her mine and I know that I wasn't her mother when I first got home. But please let me at least tell her I love her before you take her away from me. I just want to hold her and tell her that I love her and that I'm sorry." She looked up at Callie, nose slightly off to one side and eyes bright red from crying.

"Stop it." Callie said firmly, grabbing a box of tissues and yanking some out before tossing the box at Arizona. "You don't get to do that. You don't get to bail. You said you were all in, so you're all in for life. Whether we...no matter what happens you're her Momma. I'm not taking that away." How could she take Sofia away from Arizona? They were connected as deeply as she and Sofia were. That little girl worshiped at Arizona's alter and she had no idea sometimes just how much.

"Really?" Arizona whispered, really kind of shocked at Callie wouldn't take Sofia and just run away from her. "I'm going to get to keep being her Momma?" She couldn't help it as she smiled, a real smile that touched her eyes. The kind of smile that hadn't been on her face since before Nick got to the hospital. She slowly, and carefully got up to her knees. "I love you. I love you." She whispered, her voice cracking the second time. "I know you can't forget what I did. I know it can't be taken back. But I can forgive you. I have to forgive you for what you did. I have to forgive you for going though a car window when you were pregnant and not losing anything."

"Of course you do. You love her and she loves you and that girl...She already lost her father, she needs all the love she can get in this crazy messed up world." Callie said, looking down at the floor dejectedly. How is this her life? How the fuck is this...disaster her life? "That's what this is about, isn't it? We both had accidents and we both nearly died but I can use my hands and I can walk around and I am ok and you lost your leg and spent four days dying in the woods." She muttered, shaking her head at how unfair it all was.

Arizona slowly moved her hands up Callie's thighs and then back down to her knees. "The first time I kissed you I knew that we would be something. I knew that you and me would be something. I didn't know what and I didn't have any idea what the road would look like to get there but I knew." She pressed her forehead against Callie's hoping that she didn't pull away. "I forgive you for saving me life. I forgive you for not letting me die like I wanted you to." She needed to start saying all of the things she hadn't been saying to Callie. At least try to let her in a little more if they had any chance of surviving this.

"I can't...I was never going to let you go if I could save you. No matter what and I...I still love you but I...I can't forget this and right now I...I can't forgive you. I don't...I don't know how." Callie said, closing her eyes and taking a shaky breath. She can feel the heat off Arizona's skin, hitting hers where their foreheads met. Normally it brought her comfort when Arizona connected them but tonight it just made her nauseous.

"I'm not going to ask for you to forgive me. It's not something that I can ask you to do." Arizona whispered, wanting like hell to kiss her wife just so the last person she kissed wasn't Lauren. "I think we need help. A doctor who helps couples." She kept herself pressed to her wife, needing to soak in this connection as long as she could. She needed to know that for a second her wife was ok with her hands on her. "I found someone that works with survivors of limb loss and their spouses."

"What? When? I mentioned the word therapist and you flipped shit. And that was before the damned crash." Callie said, opening her eyes and meeting Arizona's, not able to look away. She's not sure they'll ever be like this again, she wants them to but...she just doesn't know. Arizona crossed a line that she swore she wouldn't bend on after George. She swore if she was with someone who cheated again she would just walk away and have a clean break. Easier said than done.

"About a week ago when we had sex and I still had a panic attack." Arizona whispered, her eyes locked with Callie's. "I need help. I need to learn to accept what happened to me and what I am now. I need to start working to fix my head after the crash and losing Nick and Tim and having the upbringing that I had." She whispered, thinking about her father a moment before pushing him away.

"Ok, I'll go. Whoever this person is, if you think they'll help you then I'll go with you." Callie said, finally moving her hands up to cup Arizona's cheeks like she so badly wanted to. She hates what she knows happened and she's so far from ok, but she can't just throw in the towel. Not after everything. She was not going to divorce her wife and leave her all alone.

Leaning in Arizona kissed Callie tenderly, only for a second. The last person she kissed was her wife. That made her feel like she might have a chance to keep that wife. "How about we go get Sofia, go to my office and pull the couch bed out and get some sleep? We can talk tomorrow when we go to the apartment and try to figure out a plan to go forward with. I know you don't want to be in a bed with me, even with Sofia there, right now. But I am asking you to just lay with me tonight."

"My office. If I go near your floor and see that...woman...I don't need to get fired or charged with assault on top of everything else." Callie growled, needing to be on a bit of home turf so to speak. Maybe it's petty or silly, but she needs it. "I have food in a cooler under my desk too. I thought if either of us had a break from the storm we could take a second to eat together. Didn't work out as planned but we all need to eat."

"All right." Arizona nodded, glad that the daycare was on another floor. "Can I put my rings back on or do you want me to keep them in my pocket?" She asked, wanting to be able to feel the weight there and have that help her keep the faith. She hated having to take her rings off at work and usually put them on first before she changed.

"I...I don't know." Callie shook her head, looking unsettled. "You can decide that." She said finally, not wanting to make the call on that and feeling a little sick thinking about either option. "Here, we should bring these pillows, my couch isn't as comfy as yours." She says as she gets up and starts gathering a few supplies. She never wanted Arizona to take her rings off again, yet at the same time the idea of her wearing them after Lauren having worn them on her top all night and after what they did…She can't stand the thought of it.

Laying on the small, uncomfortable pull out that night Arizona kept Sofia close to her chest. She wanted, needed, to have a lifeline with her. She needed to feel her little hands holding onto her scrub top and she needed to feel her little chest move up and down when she breathed. "Good night Calliope." She whispered. "I love you." She added, needing her wife to know that she still did.

"Good night Arizona." Callie looked at her family. Her daughter who was born too soon and yet somehow Arizona started her heart. Her wife that was too broken for her to be able to patch her back together like she did to others every day. She closed her eyes and reached out to put her hand in Arizona's. She wanted to hold her wife's hand even if it made her feel sick to do so. "I love you."


End file.
